"This should be an occasion of great sadness to the community," said Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor. "This man lived a life of duty and obligation and sacrifice."

The sheriff said McCartney did "tremendous good work.""He was willing to put himself on the line for an active burglary at night. That's particularly dangerous," Pastor said.

McCartney had previously been at the Hoquiam Police Department and had served in the Navy.

Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers said McCartney joined his department in April 1, 2009, after having served as a juvenile detention officers in Grays Harbor County and as a personal trainer at the Grays Harbor YMCA.

Myers said McCartney graduated from Loyalton High School in Loyalton, California, and joined the Navy in 2002.

At the end of his Navy career, he was deployed to Afghanistan with a security detailed assigned to the U.S. Army.

In Hoquiam, McCartney "served as a patrol officer with the department, but quickly acquired several collateral duties and assignments to include being a field training officer, bike patrol officer, member of the regional crisis response team and was a computer network administrator," Myers said. "Daniel had a drive on the street as well in the department to bring 110 percent to work every single day. He had a great sense of humor and was always out on the street looking and digging. Daniel received several commendations for his work as well as being selected as officer of the quarter by his peers."

"Daniel left HPD on Aug. 17, 2014, when he transferred to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy sheriff. Although he, his wife and children moved north, Daniel still has several relatives in the Grays Harbor area. The department and fellow officers have been in contact with Daniel’s family to offer our sincere condolences. Even with Daniel at Pierce County over three years, he still had regular contact with his friends here at HPD. As a small department, every one of our members is part of a close family; Daniel started his career here and he will always be one of our family. My wife and I are friends of Daniel’s sister-in-law and we know even more deeply of their pain. We sincerely mourn his loss and wish there was more we could do for his family and his fellow deputies who were out at the scene last night."